Facebook Almost Had A Mascot Named Pokey

In this week’s episode of the podcast with early Facebook engineer Karel Baloun, we learn that around 2005/2006 Facebook considered launching a company mascot to be called “Pokey.”

“Everybody has their cute little icon or mascot, and Facebook had the ‘Al Pacino’ face,” says Baloun. “Later it became just an ‘F’ but I think there was some thought of, for marketing purposes, being cute. Matt Cohler really liked Pokey the Hedgehog.”

As Baloun points out, by that time, poking was no longer considered a primary feature on the site, but apparently, the idea was kicked around the young company’s marketing department before—sadly—never actually seeing the light of day.

You can hear Baloun recount this anecdote beginning in minute 41 of the episode, or click on the YouTube video below, loaded up at that exact timestamp.

Interesting counterfactual: what if Facebook had a hedgehog mascot today, doing battle with Twitter’s bird and Snap’s ghost?

About the AuthorBrian McCullough

Brian McCullough has been in the Internet game since 1998. He was the founder or co-founder of the following companies: WhereAreTheJobs.com, WhoToTalkTo.com and ResumeWriters.com. He was named to a 2016 TED Residency.
A book loosely based on these podcasts will be coming out in Spring 2018. It is currently titled HOW THE INTERNET HAPPENED, and will be published by Liveright, a subsidiary of W.W. Norton.
He is an Arsenal fan; Gator fan; England fan. In that order. In 2014 he was the co-founder of a startup human named Penelope, and in 2016 he launched Maxwell into beta.